One of the early promises of the Information Age was contained in the adage “information wants to be free.” The massive transfer of data to digital formats and the Internet, the rapid explosion in memory capacity and communication bandwidth, and the falling price of technology are related trends reshaping humankind’s relationship with knowledge. The latest example is the public availability of raw images from the current space probe missions, including Cassini-Huygens at the Saturnian system.

In a surprising turn, imaging enthusiasts and amateurs outside ESA and NASA are beating the space agencies at turning the raw data returned by the Huygens space probe from the surface of Titan into breathtaking panorama, mosaics, cleaned-up single images, 3D renderings, and anaglyphs. These images are not official, but reflect the remarkable abilities of these individuals, most of them in Europe. The public seems to be responding; traffic has slowed down the servers of these enthusiasts to a crawl.

The most popular site appears to be anthony.liekens.net, where various contributors have sent in their weekend work. The number of images dwarfs the available images from ESA and NASA. From the site:

“This work has been done by amateurs with no extensive scientific background, publishing the first images in under 8 hours. We’ll have to wait for ESA/NASA to deliver us the correct images, so please, take the resulting images on this page with a grain of salt (that was a disclaimer).”

Impatience and enthusiasm have never come together so beautifully.

A new composite image from Titan appears to show a shoreline where river channels or canyons empty into a black sea. Huygens took the image as it was drifting down toward the surface. Scientists have not yet been able to confirm whether or not the black sea-like region and apparent river channels are full of liquid.

Scientists also pieced together a full 360-degree panorama around Huygens as it drifted out over the black sea-like body. On the left are the channels and shoreline and just right of center is the spot where Huygens landed.

Unlike Mars, where old river beds are billions of years old and show little or no evidence of recent fluvial activity, evidence from the Titan landing site strongly suggest recent fluvial activity. Should scientists confirm that liquid currently exists on its surface, Titan would become only the second known body after the Earth to have such conditions. On Titan, however, the liquid would likely be methane or ethane, rather than water. Because of the extremely cold conditions on Titan, H20 there is solid and the primary mineral in the moon’s rocks.

Dr. Lyn Doose, Co-Investigator of the Descent Imager-Spectral Radiometer (DISR) instrument on the Huygens probe, presented to a packed crowd tonight at the University of Arizona’s Kuiper Space Sciences Building the first scientific results from Friday’s successful landing on Titan. Highlights of his speech included the display of the first images from the surface of Titan, revealing an orange-color world with a thick atmosphere, rock-like pebbles likely composed of ice, and evidence for rivers and seas of liquid methane or ethane.

The DISR instrument was designed to photograph images as the probe descended by parachute through Titan’s atmosphere before impacting the ground. Dr. Doose stated that he had not been confident that the probe would survive the impact and was surprised that Huygens continued to take images for at least a half hour after it came to rest on the surface. According to Dr. Doose, other surprises include the buffeting Huygen’s took during descent by Titan’s winds, apparent images of methane fog, and the terrain that makes Titan look more like the Earth than other moons in our solar system.

The first color image was created by combining reflective spectra data compiled by Dr. Doose and a colleague with a black and white image previously released by the European Space Agency (ESA). The image depicts the color a human would see from the surface of Titan. Titan has a thick atmosphere of nitrogen and methane, which contribute to the color. The image also shows pebble-sized chunks of rock, likely made out of water ice. The roundness of the pebbles suggests deposition by fluvial processes, perhaps by flows of liquid methane.

During the question-and-answer session that followed Dr. Doose’s talk, a young boy asked what the planet would smell like. Dr. Doose answered that methane is odorless, though other hydrocarbons present in the atmosphere of Titan might contribute to a distinctive smell. He said that because methane is odorless, companies here on the Earth that supply natural gas (of which methane is a primary component) must add a signature odor as a safety measure so that people can smell a leak.

Entitled “Descending to a New World”, the free public event was sponsored by the Planetary Image Research Laboratory (PIRL) and the Department of Planetary Science Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) at the University of Arizona through LPL’s public outreach program. Guests included members of the team from Lockheed Martin, the company that built DISR. Because of the unexpectedly high public turnout, organizers scrambled to set up a second projector in the atrium outside the auditorium within which Dr. Doose spoke. Waiting for the first images from Titan to be displayed on the screen, people stood shoulder-to-shoulder on several floors of the atrium. A follow-up presentation entitled “New Discoveries on Titan” is planned for next Saturday in the same location.

Elated scientists are now examining the data sent from the surface of Titan by the Huygens probe. The first image was displayed in special video coverage from the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. The image appears to show a drainage system emptying into a dark body, though this has not yet been confirmed. Scientists had previously lowered their expectations for finding liquid on the surface of Titan after previous images from Cassini failed to show any obvious signs of oceans or lakes.

Huygens has a much better vantage point than Cassini did because it fell through the moon’s atmosphere to the surface, snapping pictures along the way. Images beneath the haze layer that covers the moon are expected to show great detail. Despite being designed to last for just a few minutes once it landed on the surface, Huygens lasted for over two hours. In fact, it was still sending data to Cassini (to be transmitted later to Earth) when Cassini traveled below the horizon, cutting off the signal. Radio telescopes on the Earth continued to pick up Huygens’ carrier signal hours after the successful landing.

The European Space Agency (ESA) developed the Huygens probe that rode with Cassini to the Saturnian system.

On December 24, 2004 the Huygens probe separated from the Cassini spacecraft and began a three week journey to Titan, when it will parachute through the moon’s thick atmosphere and snap images on its way to the surface. Cassini recently imaged the probe as a bright spot of light against a background of stars.

Scientists hope Huygens can shed some light on the alien landscape of Titan, perhaps revealing whether or not the surface is solid, liquid, or slushy. Images of the surface returned over the past few months by Cassini have only added to the mystery. The surface appears to be relatively flat and young, suggesting current tectonic activity.

On January 14, 2005 and the days following, Frontier Channel will provide coverage of Huygens landing on Titan with the latest images and information from NASA and ESA

One of the highlights of the recent Cassini flyby of Titan was a detailed analysis of the moon’s atmosphere. New images reveal a complex atmosphere filled with distinct haze layers, each layer possibly composed of a different hydrocarbon.

During a previous flyby, Cassini snapped images of cloud formations near Titan’s south pole. Clouds over mid-latitude regions were captured in new images and suggest a complex weather system. Scientists hope to learn more about the composition of these clouds, their source, and the overall global weather pattern on Titan during the Cassini mission.

Cassini-Huygens is nearing Titan for another pass. The last orbit returned the best pictures ever of Titan but deepened the mystery of this smog-covered world. Are answers forthcoming? What will the new images reveal? What new mysteries are in store? Stay tuned!

Scientists admitted this morning that they are stumped by the best-ever images of the Saturnian moon Titan. At a 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time press conference this morning, team members of the Cassini/Huygens mission tried their best to avoid speculating about the nature of the terrain visible in images, with varying degrees of success.

The tantalizing images show clear boundaries between light and dark areas, few if any impact craters, linear features and streaks on the surface, and a few probable clouds. Carolyn Porco, the Cassini Imaging Team Leader, described some of the linear features as “meandering”, a term often used to describe one type of river on the Earth, but she later noted that she was not a geologist and it was simply too soon to know for sure exactly what these images showed.

The difficulty in interpreting the images comes from the fact that there are no shadows present to get a sense of topography. The scientists speculated that this could mean there is low relief in the terrain. Cassini also used radar during this flyby, but the data was still being analyzed at the time of the press conference. Another press conference will be held tomorrow morning at the same time to discuss the radar data.

The lack of round surface features and obvious impact craters also suggests that the moon experienced recent resurfacing through tectonic or volcanic activity. Another possibility is that the craters exist but are filled up with hydrocarbons falling from the active atmosphere or slushy ice oozing up through cracks in the moon’s surface.

The scientists at the press conference were obviously very excited, but appeared to be as frustrated as the reporters present, who tried to pry more speculative explanations for the strange features in the Titan images from the mission team. Team members stated that answers would require putting together all the evidence from the various instruments aboard Cassini and the Huygens probe over the next few years. The lack of definitive explanations hint at just how strange and alien Titan really is, and how exciting science can be.

The best ever images of Titan are being beamed to Earth by the Cassini spacecraft through early this morning. Most of the pictures released by NASA so far have not been cleaned up, but reveal distinct divisions between dark and light areas, and areas were the darker material completely surrounds pockets of the light material. Scientists are working through the night to be ready for a press conference at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time regarding their analysis of these images.

Some scientists have theorized in the past that there might be liquid ethane lakes or seas on the Saturnian moon. So far it is unclear what we are looking at in these images. Xanadu is the light area, large as a continent on the earth and one of the first surface features of Titan to be captured by ground-based telescopes.

Cassini must observe Titan through a thick smog-like atmosphere. Since different wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, including visible light, pass differently through different materials, Cassini’s cameras can snap images at various wavelengths. This flexibility results in scores of images taken at different wavelengths that focus on the opaque haze above the rest of the atmosphere, the various levels of clouds in the atmosphere, and the surface.

Crater density appears to be low on the moon’s surface, unlike most of the moons in our solar system. This suggests that geological processes are at work on Titan that result in a much younger surface. Learning what these processes might be will require further research and more images. Cassini will flyby Titan many times, with some orbits bringing it closer to the surface than last night’s flyby.

Our robotic creations, this time Cassini, continue to explore areas of our universe that remain inaccessible to humans, allowing us to explore alien worlds from the comfort of our planet. Just yesterday, all we knew of Titan was its thick atmosphere and hints of surface features. This morning we are suddenly peering at strange landscapes and vistas never before seen by humanity.

The Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS) website has much bigger images available for viewing. The imaging team’s center for operations is the University of Arizona.

Today is the big day. The Cassini spacecraft is heading toward a close flyby of Titan, with the likely result the best pictures ever taken of the shrouded Saturnian moon. On Sunday, Cassini snapped a clear image of the moon at a wavelength that allowed it to see through the thick atmosphere. The large and white continent-sized area is called Xanadu. So far, scientists are not clear as to the exact nature of this terrain, but perhaps by tonight they will have better information.

In December, the Huygens probe that is riding piggyback on Cassini will be released and set a course for Titan. Several days later Huygens will parachute through the atmosphere of Titan, snapping pictures and recording sounds on its way to the surface.

Cassini itself will revisit Titan several times over the next four years, perhaps much closer than this current flyby. Cassini will also fly by many of the planet’s other moons. The mission has already revealed much greater detail, more mysteries, and better pictures than any other previous mission, and the best is yet to come.

NASA TV will begin live web coverage of the event tonight at 6:30 p.m. Pacific Time. NASA TV is also available on some satellite and cable systems. Stay turned for updates and images right here on Frontierchannel.tv beginning very early tomorrow morning.